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an interesting bastard to say the least

look like most fellas reading romance manga i love cute girls so this is right up my alley, but another part of that comes in the form of self-inserting (at least, unconsciously). saito is a character that, if you're like me, will stare you right in the face and make you think about your own perception of relationships

the theme of "perception", and our preconceptions of people's personalities, probably makes up the sole focus of spotlight. i think the idea of a beauty pageant being the centerpiece of a romance manga is a little cringe but it actually works ... great for spotlight, as pageants are entirely based on peoples perceptions of participants, being portrayed as ideal people, and matching them up with each other. saito's relationship with ogawa was founded upon a distorted idea of her personality as some sort of goddess, but this idea slowly unfolds as saito reflects on his own perception of ogawa and other people. avoiding spoilers; a lot of things in spotlight aren't what they actually are, and character development is always in motion as the characters surrounding the pageant realize that their preconceptions of each other are just based on surface-level perceptions

if you're into a not-really-romance that breaks and shits on typical romance tropes, this is probably up your alley

Our main guy(Kaito) is a photographer and is a bit socially awkward, especially with the girl he likes. He takes a lot of pictures of the girl he's crushing on(Ogawa) without her knowing. He gets found out by a few people, including his crush who takes him as a creep, and he is forced to re-evaluate why he chose her as a subject and why he even likes her. At the background is an upcoming beauty contest where Ogawa is to be a contestant, and Kaito, a photographer.

The writing and overall presentation is strongly seinen as seinen can be. No cheap jokes. No chibi style. ... These are characters in the cusp of adulthood, but not quite adults yet, and the dialogue reflects that. There is a clear level maturity to them, but not quite enough to completely overcome their harder personal struggles with insecurity, love, and friendship.

There's some criticism to be made for the pacing, sometimes filled with what seems like unnecessary details and discussions. If you consider the story as a slice-of-life, I guess you can swallow it better, but strangely, I never felt it being slice of life. Though the focus strays here and there to different characters and situations, somehow the story wants the "spotlight" to always be on our two main characters. It's a weird mix of romance and slice-of-life, and I say weird because there's something "off" about the proportions and the execution. I'm not saying it ruins the whole thing. On the contrary, I LIKE this series so far and I'm on pins and needles on how it ends. Unfortunately, scanlating seems really slow.